Marci Hower

General manager and co-ownerPrecision Dialogue LLC39

Marci Hower’s adult life has taken her from a kibbutz in Israel to art school in New York to partner of an online direct marketing company in Rocky River.“It’s not the typical journey most people would think of in becoming a partner in a business,” she said.That’s an understatement, considering Ms. Hower worked in her early 20s sorting and cleaning eggs on the kibbutz, in addition to spending time as an au pair in London and Paris.Now Ms. Hower is general manager and co-owner of Precision Dialogue LLC. The company helps clients with e-mail and web site marketing, as well as search engine optimization.Some of the 10-employee company’s notable clients include banking giant National City Corp., the Council of Smaller Enterprises and Michigan-based temp agency Kelly Services Inc. Ms. Hower said she’s particularly proud of a project her company did for COSE that enabled the small business group to customize e-newsletters with dynamic content based on members’ profiles. For example, a technology company’s newsletter would contain information relevant to that specific industry.“It’s targeting the right content to the right people based on their profiles,” Ms. Hower said.For the last two years, the Cleveland native has served as president of the Northern Ohio Direct Marketing Association, a 170-member group that holds educational seminars for marketing professionals. After graduating from the Parsons School of Design in New York, Ms. Hower took a job as a graphic designer at Vantage One Communications, a company founded by her current partner in Precision Dialogue, Dan Rose. She’s spent the last 10 years gaining the business acumen that led to her being promoted to partner at Precision Dialogue in 2004.But the 39-year-old mother of three still marvels at her willingness years ago to jump on a one-way flight to London with about $250 in her pocket.“Traveling while younger was an adventure,” she said. “Running a business and raising our family is my adventure now.”

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